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There may be little that is musically authentic about RBD, a prefabricated pop/rock act that was initiated on television, yet the group of Mexican teens achieved astounding commercial success, quickly becoming a multilingual pop culture juggernaut whose market impact stretched from Brazil to the United States. The group is comprised of six youths, three of them boys, three girls -- Alfonso Herrera, Christian Chávez, Dulce María, Maite Perroni, Christopher Uckermann, and Anahí Portilla -- all of them telegenic, able actors, and physically fit to perfection, each with a uniquely fashionable look. They're like a supergroup comprised of both Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys -- manufactured for optimal appeal, no doubt, and forcefully marketed across a range of entertainment mediums, television above all. In fact, music came second for the group, who began as the cast of a prime-time telenovela, Rebelde. The show proved so popular throughout Latin America that the extension of the brand into pop music seemed natural (if not prearranged), for this is a common practice in Hispanic media, as numerous Latin pop stars -- from Thalía and Shakira to Carlos Vives and Chayanne -- got their starts in telenovelas. RBD doesn't write their own songs or play any of the music; they sing, act, dance, and give the music a marketable face. Moreover, there's little that's "Latin" about the group in terms of music. They may be Mexican and sing primarily in Spanish, but their music is tried-and-true pop/rock, modeled primarily after arena rock and power ballads of the '80s. Critics, of course, loathed RBD, often mocking the notion that there was anything "rebellious" about the act. Still, that didn't stop RBD from garnering legions of young fans across the world and selling tons of CDs and DVDs in the process.
It all began with a television show. The telenovela Rebelde debuted in October 2004 and concluded in June 2006, running for three seasons, 440 episodes in total. The show was produced by Pedro Damián for Televisa, the largest media company in the Hispanic world, headquartered in Mexico City. (Televisa owns a stake in Univisión, the leading Hispanic television company in the United States.) A remake of an Argentine telenovela of the same name, Rebelde is set in an elite private boarding school near Mexico City. The main characters are upper-class adolescents, and the major plot point is that they decide to form a band. That band is RBD, which provides a reality show touch to the music. Likewise, real-life music stars frequently make guest cameos on the show, among them Hilary Duff, Luny Tunes, Gorillaz, and JD Natasha. Too, the show employs extensive product placement -- for instance, lots of Cola-Cola is drunk by the characters. Overall, Rebelde isn't all that different from a typical telenovela, with the exception of its popularity, which was international. Not only did Rebelde earn top ratings in the Spanish-speaking world, but it also proved extremely popular in Brazil and the United States.
The group RBD debuted in January 2005 with the album Rebelde, released by EMI, and opened with the show's theme song of the same name. The primary writers for the project were DJ Kafka and Max di Carlo, and their songs proved nearly as popular as the show. The first three singles ("Rebelde," "Solo Quedate en Silencio," "Sálvame") were all number one hits in Mexico, with the fourth single, "Un Poco de Tu Amor," reaching number two. A Portuguese-language edition of the album was released for the Brazilian market, also in 2005. And though no English-language edition was released, Rebelde sold well in the States, breaking into the Top 100 of the album chart and reaching number two on the Top Latin Albums chart. The releases continued with little pause. In July came a live CD/DVD, Tour Generación RBD en Vivo, commemorating the group's sold-out tour of Mexico (35 sold-out concerts across the country, including six in Mexico City alone). And in October came their second studio album, Nuestro Amor, which set new sales records in Mexico, selling 160,000 copies in its first week alone. In the U.S., the album topped the Latin Albums chart and again broke into the overall Top 100. The first four singles all were number one hits in Mexico: "Nuestro Amor," "Aún Hay Algo," "Tras de Mi," and "Este Corazón." These singles were hits in the U.S., but didn't do any chart-topping.
The following year, 2006, brought no rest for RBD. Tragedy struck early, when a 38-year-old woman and her children, ages 11 and 13, were trampled during an autograph rush in the parking lot of a shopping mall in São Paulo on February 4. The three died and another 42 were injured in the incident, which involved the breach of a security fence holding back an estimated 15,000 rabid fans. Not long after, RBD toured the United States for the first time, in April issuing a commemorative CD/DVD, Live in Hollywood. Several months later, Rebelde the telenovela came to an end with the finale of its third season on June 2. With the finale came promising news for fans, however, as the group announced that they would begin filming a movie and recording an English-language album comprised of songs from their first two albums. (Earlier in 2006 they had released a Portuguese version of Nuestro Amor, titled Nosso Amor.) Plus, the group announced that they would continue to tour and would begin working on their third album at the end of the year. Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide |
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